I'll Take You Far From Here
by Rikki Tivursky
Summary: Caden wants to spend more time with Jay so he invites her to spend the weekend with him. OC/OC


Caden checked his watch again as he wanted to make sure that everything was going as smoothly as he wanted it. Starting down at the somewhat beat up face of his watch he saw the hands ticking by slowly as he saw that he was still early. Knowing that eased the feeling of being pressed for time he had been feeling since waking up that morning. Caden continued down the familiar and slightly crowded sidewalk. He expertly weaved around people that stepped into his way as he had lived in the city long enough to hone that sort of skill.

After passing a couple of blocks he saw the familiar and crappy looking apartment building in the distance. Thinking about what he was planning on doing he couldn't help but smile to himself as he hoped that everything was going to go his way. He could only hope since with Jay it was hard to tell what her moods would make her decide.

In no time Caden had made it to the stoop in front of Jay's building. Up close the building was still and old and rough looking as he remembered. Though he doubted that anything on the building would be updated in only two days. Without having to look Caden pushed the buzzer for Jay's apartment since he was already so familiar with her building. A moment later he heard the crackle of the intercom.

"Hello?" Came the muffled and slight distorted voice. It sounded slightly suspicious as it spoke, but Caden knew it was Jay.

"Can you let me up babe?" Caden asked adding the nickname that he knew that Jay didn't really like. Another loud crackle came from the little speaker, and Caden realized that it was a loud sigh from Jay. The door buzzed loudly and annoyingly as Jay held down the unlock button long enough for Caden to open the door. He didn't feel the need to wait on the little stoop and walked straight inside, after making sure that the door closed behind him. He was familiar with how some of the older remnants in the building like the front door to be closed at all times. It gave them a sense of comfort that strangers wouldn't be able to enter the building so easily. Anyone who forgot about keeping the door closed rule usually got a severe talking to. So to keep the old harpies in the building happy Caden did his best to remember to close the door.

He climbed the stairs slowly taking his time as the stairwell was always eerily quiet whenever he came to visit. With no other sound besides the ones of his feet hitting the stairs the echoes sounded a little louder than normal. Without realizing he was doing he found himself trying to walk quieter. It took him a little longer to climb the stairs that way, but after a while he finally reached the floor that Jay lived on.

He had to lean against the wall outside of her apartment for a moment to catch his breath a little as he had climbed a lot of steps. When it finally came back to him he straightened up, and knocked loudly on Jay's door. Leaning forward he strained to hear for signs of Jay moving around her apartment. If he listened carefully he could faintly hear her doing something inside. It made him wonder if she was running around her apartment trying to make her look presentable before letting him in. He knew that was just a little personal fantasy of his that would never really come true, but that didn't stop him for hoping just a little bit.

One brief pause later the door finally opened up, just a little crack as she checked to make sure that it really was Caden. Seeing that he was alone she opened the door wider, and let him in.

"Still playing commando's?" he jokingly asked her as he stepped through the door, as he was already familiar with some of the precautionary safety measures she used all the time. At first it was a little weird for him, but he got used to it soon enough. He understood that she had her reasons for wanting to make sure she was completely safe at all times. Especially now that she was expecting he knew that her paranoia would be even worse.

"You can never be too careful," Jay snorted as she closed the door behind Caden and re-locked it. Caden noticed that she had added an extra deadbolt to the door. He thought it was best if he probably didn't ask about that. Without waiting to be asked he walked over to the couch in the room and plopped down on it. He watched Jay as she finished locking up the door, and walked over and sat down on the couch as well. She angled herself towards him, but she still wasn't sitting to close to him.

At least she was sitting on the same couch with him, Caden thought to himself with a smile. As he remembered how Jay would sit in the small little arm chair next to the couch when Caden started coming over. So he was making some progress with her, so she was starting to get use to him more.

"So why did you come over?" Jay asked sounding professional as always whenever he turned up. He guessed that in her line of work it kind of made sense as to why she seemed so business ready. He made a mental note to try and think of a way to get to relax a little and not make him feel like he was in an interview of some kind.

"I had something that I wanted to ask you," Caden told her as he leaned back into the couch and let himself relax.

"And what would that be exactly?" she asked as she wasn't sure where he was going as she picked up something in the tone of his voice that made her feel very wary of what he was about to say.

"I wanted to know if you'd go on a trip with me," he asked her nonchalantly. The moment he said that out loud he noticed how Jay's eyes squinted at him suspiciously.

"What kind of trip are we talking about here?"

"You know the kind that requires you to go out into the woods for a couple of days," Caden told her hoping that maybe that would sound interesting to her. Shifting his weight to one side he dug around in one of his jean pockets before pulling out a severely crumpled piece of paper and handing it to Jay. Jay took the paper and looked it over, it was printout of a picture of a cabin. By the looks of it, it didn't look so bad. It wasn't as flimsy looking as Jay thought it would look, and it seemed to be furnished pretty well. So at the very least it would make a pretty good cover.

"If I said, yes, and this is a really strong 'if', when would we be leaving?" Jay asked as she kept staring at the picture.

"Well it's Wednesday right now, so I was hoping maybe leave of Friday or Thursday at the earliest, and pretty much spend the entire weekend out there," Caden said scratching his chin as he thought about it. Jay mulled that over some more in her head as she wasn't sure if she could afford to take that many days off, but then again it seemed that Caden went through all of the trouble to plan this all out. As far as work was concerned for Jay she hadn't heard a peep from anyone. Which only happened every once in a while, so maybe it was a sign for her to take the trip.

Jay let out a defeated sigh as she had been arguing with herself in her mind, and she realized that in the end she would at least agree to go with Caden. That didn't mean she would relax the entire time.

"Alright I guess I'm in then," she said to him before handing back the piece of paper to him. She glanced at Caden and saw how widely he was grinning at her as soon as she said yes. Normally she had no problems looking people straight in the eyes, but for some reason at that moment Jay had to look anywhere else than at Caden's face.

Her face felt like someone had placed a hot towel on her cheeks, and she realized that she was probably blushing. Which made her feel even worse as she couldn't remember the last time that someone had made her blush. Well besides Rory, and her close friends, but they didn't count. Without thinking about it Jay grabbed one of the decorative pillows on the couch and hit Caden in the face with it.

"Ough! What was that for?" Caden sputtered through the cushion before Jay hit him again.

"For being an idiot," Jay told him in what she hoped was a calm sounding voice.

The comment then resulted in an hour long pillow fight between the two of them until Caden broke first and mock begged for mercy from Jay. She decided to take her win, and offered Caden a drink as she realized how thirsty playing around with him had made her. Jay picked up the pillows that had fallen to the ground during the battle and tossed them back onto where she could find the space on the couch and chairs. Afterwards she made her way over to the kitchen, and Caden trailed behind her.

Jay walked up to the fridge and pulled the door open and bent forward to reach inside. She pulled out two bottles of water, as she didn't entirely trust the tap water system in the building.

"Here," she said turning to Caden before tossing the extra water bottle towards him. She didn't bother to wait for him to catch it before opening her own, and taking a long drink. Thankfully he managed to catch it by dipping a little, at the last moment.

"Thanks," he said to Jay slightly sarcastic as he watched her not really bothering to wait for him. It didn't bother him all that much, so he opened his own bottle and drank nearly half of it in one gulp. "So is there anyway I can get something to eat with this?" he asked as after he got rid of his burning thirst his stomach let out a rumbling noise.

Jay scrunched her face slightly at the thought of having to cook, but she had a guest at her place. Knowing Caden she wasn't too sure he could touch her stove without setting something on fire.

"So what do you want?" she asked and dreading whatever came out of his mouth. She knew how to cook, but it wasn't like she was a five star chef. She had too much going on in her life to get to that level of cooking. Caden pulled out a chair from the small table in the kitchen and sat down before pondering Jay's question.

"I guess whatever your specialty is," Caden said with a smile. Which made Jay turn around swiftly as she didn't want to blush in front of him again. Trying to distract herself she walked around the kitchen gathering the things she needed. Pots, and then filling it with water and putting it on the stove before turning on the heat. Before she could forget she grabbed the apron hanging on a hook in the kitchen and put it on. It was a slightly embarrassing apron as it was covered in frills and flowers. It had been a gift from Rory who claimed that 'it looked perfect for her'. Normally it didn't bother her, but with Caden over she noticed how out of style for her it was.

While waiting for the water to boil she went around the kitchen gathering the ingredients she needed and started to prepare them. She washed whatever needed to be rinsed, chopped things, and when the time was ready added things to the water. While she was doing all of that Caden watched her quietly and deeply interested as he never saw her do anything domestically like cooking. He had to admit that it was kind of cute to see her moving from one side of the kitchen to the other. It also helped that she was wearing a really adorable apron, that he didn't expect her to own.

"So what are you making?" Caden asked curiously as he wanted to break up the awkward silence that had filled the kitchen as soon as Jay started cooking.

"Stew," Jay replied as she didn't bother looking up from the pot that she was slowly stirring a wooden spoon in, "a beef strew to be exact, I learned the recipe from an old friend of mine," she added as she had sensed what Caden's next question might have been. When he didn't say anything after that she knew that she had answered his question for now at least. He would probably come up and whole assortment of new ones in no time. "since then I've kind of made it my own," Jay continued on before pausing to take a sip of the broth to see if it was just right yet. Smacking her lips lightly she tasted that it had reached that point that she was pleased with it.

"It's ready," Jay said satisfied as she turned the stove off, and went looking for some bowl from the cabinets. She found two and brought them to the counter next to the stove, where she filled the first bowl up. She walked it to the table and placed it gently on the table before sliding it towards Caden. Then she went to go fetch him a spoon so he could begin eating. With the bowl sitting right under his nose Caden inhaled deeply and was surprised at how delicious the stew smelled.

Not that he didn't trust Jay's cooking skills, but he remembered she had mentioned that she wasn't much of a cook. So the stew really surprised him, and he couldn't wait to taste it hoping that it was as good as it smelt. Jay broke him out of his thoughts as she stood next to him and help out a spoon to him.

"Thanks," he told her before taking the spoon and dipping it into the broth and taking a careful sip as it was still hot. "Wow this is really good!" he exclaimed and afterwards took another spoonful.

By the time that Caden had begun to eat Jay had served herself already and just sat down. Hearing his compliment about her food made it hard for her to keep a straight face as she smiled a little but kept her eyes down on her bowl and tried to bit her lip to keep herself from smiling any larger.

"Thanks," she said managed to mumble before eating a spoonful of the stew, as she felt the slight trickle of pride swell up in her chest. Caden saying nice things about her food felt different than when Rory, Sera, or even Maria complimented her. She couldn't put her finger on why it felt so different, but it did. Just for a brief second it made her wonder if she should try brushing up on her cooking skills to see if she could make anything else that Caden would enjoy.

But she realized where her train of thought was going and put a mental road stop on that, and it made her feel a little embarrassed as she never really had thoughts like that. She forced herself to eat more of her stew and keep her mind from wandering back towards that direction. For the most part she was able to though every so often she found her mind going back to that forbidden zone.

In-between bites of food Caden and managed to get Jay to talk. Though he stuck to random little questions about how Jay's day had been so far. Jay hadn't really done much that day she got a little odds and ends for around the house, and some supplies for work that she had been low on. But as far as getting a job contract she got nothing. So when she got home she had cleaned up and tidied around while she waited for Caden to come over.

By the time she had gotten Caden up to date with what had been going on with her the two of them had finished eating. Jay got up from the table and gathered all the dished from the table. She was about to walk them over to the sink to wash them when Caden stopped her.

"Here, let me," he said to her before carefully taking the dishes from her and walked them over to the sink. Where he turned on the water, and began to wash them.

"You don't have to do that," she told him as she was perfectly fine with washing the dishes.

"It's cool, I'm your guest the least I could do is help out with the dishes," Caden said with a laugh. "Besides while I'm doing this you can put away the leftovers," he said motioning with his head over at the stove. Where the stew pot was still there. Even after having three bowls himself Caden knew that they hadn't eaten all of it.

"Ok then," Jay said as she knew that Caden had a good point so while he took care of their dishes she went about storing the left over stew away so she could eat it later on whenever she got hungry again. By the time she was done with that she saw that not only had Caden done their dishes buy also the few extra ones in the sink that she had meant to wash earlier. "Thanks for the extra help," she said to him as she leaned against one of the counters next to the sink as she waited for him to finish up.

Caden finished rinsing the last of the dishes and turned off the water and shook his hands to get the water off of them.

"No problem," he said giving her one of him familiar crooked smiles. He glanced at his watch to check the time, which Jay recognized as he had a habit of checking the time when he was getting close to having to start his shift at the pub.

"You working tonight?" Jay asked sounding casually even though she knew what his answer would be.

"Yeah they called me earlier to cover the empty spot they had, I didn't want to say anything to make you feel you had to rush, or anything, plus I'd rather spend the free time here than loafing around on the couch at home," he explained to her. Jay felt another flush of kind feelings towards Caden as he was willing to sacrifice his free time to come and see her. For a moment she wished that they had more time to spend with each other that day. "So i should probably start heading out before they start to hound me with calls, and chew my ass out for not being there already," he joked as he walked towards Jay's front door.

Jay trailed behind him as she tried to think of something to say to him but everything that come to mind sounded so cheesy to her. Before she noticed it they were at the door with Caden standing there waiting for Jay to unlock the door for him. Stepping forward Jay undid the locks and pulled open the door for Caden, who took a step forward. "Be careful," Jay said before she could stop herself, and Caden turned back to look at her with a slight confused expression as she had never told him to be careful before like that. "and have a you know good shift or something," she muttered under her breath as she was already feeling the urge to find a hole to crawl into and die there.

Caden didn't take the opportunity to make fun for her, and instead smiled at her.

"Thanks I will," he said before leaning in to kiss her on the lips before she could say no. He pulled away quickly in case Jay felt the urge to swat him like she usually did when he tried to pull that move on her. "I'll come back in a few days to pick you up," he said to her before stepping out in the hallway and heading down the stairs. Jay stood there at the door watching him walk away until he disappeared from sight before she closed the door. After re-locking it she stumbled towards the couch and collapsed on it face first. She yelled into the cushion at her embarrassing remarks to Caden until she felt a little better,and rolled over onto her back.

"That stupid idiot," she grumbled to herself as she laid there with her arms across her face.

* * *

Characters featured in the story do not belong to me.

They belong to a friend of mine, and this fic is a present for her.

So I hope you all enjoy as much as she is so far!


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